I have a few Philips wiz lights and they are reliable. I blocked them from connecting to the internet and I manage them from HomeAssistant. The only issue is that if I have a blackout, they come back all on at 100% brightness. I know there’s a setting for “keep the last state” on setup, but I redid it a few times and it never sticks.

If you can overcome the first kinda large step of setting up a basic install of Proxmox + ZFS pool, you’ll love it. You can try shit out and nuke it if you don’t like it. Helper Scripts from here are also a great way to try stuff without breaking anything you already have. each container gets its own IP so you don’t have to juggle stuff with a reverse proxy (which is a PITA to set up properly) and with TailScale on the host, you can pretty much access everything from anywhere, without exposing it to the wider internet.

Creating a ZFS pool is also rather nice, because you can keep adding new disks to the pool when you’re running short. Ideally you’d use some mirroring for security. Backups are also nice with proxmox, as long as you don’t give every LXC a giant size quota.

Last thing, DO get an UPS, even if it’s a small consumer grade one that lasts 5 minutes. Make sure it has some sort of conectivity (network or USB) and it’s linux compatible. I’ve lost a lot of time rebuilding a 2yo NextCloud install that went all wonky after a blackout.

So in a detailed summary from your points:

1. Proxmox makes it easy to make, test and restore backups, even if it’s for a spare drive or across the network. Setting up a /mnt/usb mountpoint for an external USB drive by UUID is one way of having it available when needed, and kept offline for safekeeping
2. Frigate NVR. Lightweight, can integrate with HomeAssistant for automations and alerts. Try getting “dumb” IP cameras, most of the smart IoT stuff will try to upsell you on crap and might end up bricked by the company down the line.
3. Nextcloud for your PC backups and Immich for your phone photos. NC also has an android and iOS app that can sync folders you tell it to.
4. Look up “YAMS”. I’d recommend running the whole YAMS stack + portainer on a separate Proxmox LXC so you can easily put the whole thing on a separate VPN instead of relying on the provided gluetun package
5. For quick One-offs, portainer is more than enough. There’s Pterodactyl and Pelican for more in-depth server hosting but I found it too cumbersome
6. PiHole LXC on a fixed IP and set your devices (or better yet, your router/AP if you can) pointing to it’s IP as the primary DNS server
7. not really sure what you mean here, wired connections tend to be the best, maybe get a Pi or a small android box that supports ethernet.
8. HomeAssistant (use the VM helper script for full HAOS!)
9. HomeAssistant again, try getting a smart meter that doesn’t rely on shitty APIs like Tuya, unless you’re willing to dive into hacking with tasmota.
10. ProxmoxLXC, there’s already a helper script for it.
11. Kiwix-server has a docker image, easily hostable and it takes Wikipedia’s offline archive files.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

I finally made it work last week. I was overcomplicating, as usual: nextcloud AIO includes all the requirements to run Talk, I just had to modify the config file to point at my domain and add a new entry at :8081 on my reverse proxy. Hosted a 2 hour video call with 3 friends without issues!

I didn’t start with a spare, so by the time I was semi-reliant on my self hosted stuff, a breakage was an issue. Also I started with bare Linux, then CasaOS. There was no easy rollback from snapshot/restore backup like on proxmox

Good luck!

I will probably get flogged by this answer but here it goes:

I’d throw you right into the deep end: get a spare machine (an old laptop or PC) and install proxmox on it. Play around, breaks shit, delete the container/VM and start over.

Grab stuff from the Community Helper Scripts and see new stuff, try alternatives, see what works for you and don’t be afraid of breaking stuff.

It takes a bit longer and some basic concepts might fly over your head, but the stuff you learn like this, you learn by heart.

It’s been a few years since I started tinkering with a laptop with a busted video output circuit. Now I serve NextCloud and Immich to my family, keep receipts and documents neatly organised on Paperless, have a decent arr stack and a bunch of extra goodies. All from “a PC without video? Might as well make a server” now with a proper machine with several drives on ZFS pools, health checks and redundancy.

Its a helluva rabbit hole.

If you already have HomeAssistant

https://github.com/ad-ha/kidschores-ha

I loved the idea behind Funkwhale but damn it was such q a chore to set up I ended up spinning up 4 navidrome instances lol

No joke here, try (internet) radio. You’ll discover stuff you’d never get on algo-based recommendations. I might be biased by growing up with Winamp’s shoutcast

Some sort of gecko, maybe a Tokay gecko?

presses Ctrl+G to foghorn

It’s your system and you agreed to licence your data to them. So technically it’s not theft. But also technically, pirating isn’t theft either, you’re not breaking into microsoft HQ and stealing a product key.

On a practical everyday way, yeah, I would say they are “stealing” your data, since they hide that as a clause in a massive EULA that can be altered at any time, and you either accept it or don’t get to use what you bought.

You sign ownership away when you scroll past 35 pages and click “I Accept”

Which version? The daisy wheel or the dual thumb keyboard?

I kinda miss the older circular mode, it was hard to get used to, but it was really quick and precise

No they weren’t. I used to play Elite Dangerous and the paddles were used as modifiers, so for example the left paddle held down would change all the face button inputs to distributing energy while the right pad would swap them to common cockpit functions (landing gear, fsd, lights…) Meanwhile both bumpers and triggers remained as a single function: yaw and weapon groups

If you feel particularly nerdy and love stats and graphs, here’s a rabbit hole for you

https://bkbilly.gitbook.io/lnxlink

Recently had to help a relative who still uses windows, so here’s a freebie from Linux:

You can use super + number to launch any pinned program on the taskbar. For example let’s say you have your browser right of the start button and file explorer on the next spot right, pressing super+1 launches the browser and super+2 the explorer

Edit: super = windows logo key

I kinda use most of proton’s stuff. Also I’m not on the us so no idea what the second part means

It’s on my to-research list. I heard some rumblings that tailscale might go IPO. Not that’s bad by itself but I have been burned by stuff like that leaving me stranded once they “pivot their operations to maximize investor satisfaction” (aka enshittification)

Thats what Felix said, im personally a fan of OrganicMaps